Cafe Elixir reflects my interest in shaping conventional form with asymmetrical structure, mixing and juxtaposing the conventional with the unconventional, and logically related, and its style is intentionally retroactive.  

The opening bars of three paraphrastic chordal moves connected tritonally - A to Bb, E to F, B to C - obtaining from chromaticism rather than from standard scaletone practice.  Conventional sensibility is finally complied with in the 6th and 7th bars - B going to E - but only briefly.  This is followed by two asymmetrically juxtaposed 2-bar paraphrastic patterns - F- to D7, Bb- to Gb7 to (ah, at last a familiar resolve) BM7 - and so forth.

The bridge, though somewhat more conventional, echoes in its opening bars the opening bars of Section A, but obvertly by way of three chromatically shifting tritones - D to Ab, Db to G, C to F# - each tritone shift connected by a standard scaletone-related resolve.

Try it.  Once you’ve accustomed yourself to its particularities, I think you’ll enjoy playing it.  I do.

Return to Originals Menu